NE NRI meet to be held at Guwahati in Dec

Guwahati, Aug 18: For the first time, a meet of the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) of the North Eastern region will be held in December this year at Guwahati.

Announcing this at a press meet here today, Assam Industries and Commerce Minister Pradyut Bordoloi said the meet will be held on December 21-22 to coincide with the Christmas and New Year celebrations, as the NRIs visit the country during the year-end vacations.

The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) had been entrusted with the task of organising the meet, the minister said. A committee had already been formed for the purpose, with Mr Bordoloi as the head and CII NE Chairman Abhijit Dutta as the member-secretary.

''The CII has already started working and formed a special cell for the purpose. The recently formed Industrial Investment Secretariat Cell of the Commerce Ministry of Assam will coordinate with them,'' Mr Bordoloi said.

He said NRIs from the region, who had achieved excellence in their fields, would be honoured during the meet and discussions on how the NRIs could help in the development of NE would also be held.

Technology innovations, rural technology, health care, energy, education, market channels, IT, urban development, infrastructure and tourism are some of the sectors which would figure prominently in the discussions, he added.

Mr Bordoloi said the NRIs, who had met Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi during his recent US and UK visit, had shown keen interest in investing in their homeland and this NRI meet was planned keeping in mind their sentiments.

He said there were over 6,000 NRIs from Assam alone and the figure would go up several notches when all the NE states were taken together.

Besides tendering formal invitations, various networking sites and the internet was being used to communicate the dates to the NRIs.

''A website will also launched very soon,'' Mr Bordoloi added.

UNI